Sur­vey of tor­ture in­dicts whole sys­tem

The Na­tional Tor­ture Preva­lence Sur­vey 2016 re­leased yes­ter­day has some bad news (see story P8). Com­mis­sioned by the In­de­pen­dent Medico Le­gal Unit, it sur­veyed 2,400 re­spon­dents, and re­ports a seven per cent in­crease in tor­ture of civil­ians by mem­bers of the Na­tional Po­lice Ser­vice across the five-year pe­riod since the last sur­vey.

Reg­u­lar cops as the worst of­fend­ers are fol­lowed by Ad­min­is­tra­tion Po­lice of­fi­cers. Every level of law en­force­ment is fea­tured in this fright­en­ing sur­vey: County gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials; prison warders; Army spe­cial po­lice squads; pri­vate mili­tia funded by the State; the spy agency NIS; and Kenya Wildlife Ser­vice rangers

Phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal tor­ture has ap­par­ently be­come stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dure in Kenyan law en­force­ment, in­clud­ing in the cells, homes and dur­ing ar­rest.

The sur­vey does not say so, but the un­san­i­tary po­lice cell and prison con­di­tions in Kenya con­sti­tute forms of both phys­i­cal and men­tal tor­ture.This is both in­tol­er­a­ble and un­ac­cept­able.